Talk:Nottamun Town

Cecil Sharp and the Ritchie family
This song was collected by the noted collector Cecil Sharp in 1917 at the Hindman Settlement School in Pine Mountain, Kentucky, from singers Una and Sabrina Ritchie, older sister and paternal cousin of Jean Ritchie, best-known member of the Singing Family of the Cumberlands, and its most famous interpreter. It appeared in Sharp's book English Folk Songs of the Southern Appalachians (1932). A version, "Nottingham Town" from (I believe) Missouri is also known to folklorists. Though "Nottamun Town" likely originated as a mummers' song in England, it was apparently forgotten in its country of origin, where no traces of it remain. See | Lyle Lofgren, "Remembering The Old Songs: 'Nottamun Town'", (originally published in Inside Bluegrass, September 2003.) Mballen (talk) 17:01, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

The following is a letter Ritchie wrote to Roger McGuinn's Folk Archive that was published October 1, 1999 on the McGuin's blog Folk Den under the title | "Fair Nottamun Town":

Jean Ritchie writes:

Dear Roger McGuinn,

This is Jean Ritchie here; I loved listening to your music on the web, and appreciate your interest in folk music. Your singing of "Fair Nottamun Town" was especially fine and I felt I must write to give you my history with the song. The version you perform is the Ritchie Family (Kentucky) version. I have never heard J[ohn] J[acob] Niles sing it, nor has anyone else I know – I knew him quite well; he visited and got songs from the family in his early days, and it was there he saw his first dulcimer, but to my knowledge he never performed, "Nottamun Town." The time you heard him must have been the only one, and he certainly learned it from the Ritchies.

The song has been in our family back many generations, and was collected at the Hindman Settlement School in Knott County, KY by Cecil Sharp around 1917 from the singing of my sister Una who was a student there (Una was 4th in our family of 14; I'm "the baby one," and am 77 now). Our family ancestors came over from England, Scotland, Ireland, the earliest ones we know of arrived in 1768. Our family still cherishes and sings the songs they brought with them.

If you will check in Sharp's book of Appalachian songs he collected, you will find the Ritchie version – the one you sing – as notated from the singing of Una and Sabrina Ritchie (Sabrina was our cousin). I added the "mule roany mare" phrase, instead of "that was called a grey mare." Also, it always bothered me that one-half of one of the verses was missing – just filled in with dots…. then the last two lines are the ones beginning, "I bought me a quart…" For years, I sang, "la, la, la," for those missing lines, but finally just put in two of my own, "They laughed and they smiled, not a soul did look gay; they talked all the while, not a word did they say…"

In the sixties, when the Kingston Trio and others began performing and copywriting (as writers) our family songs, I applied for several copyrights for the family. A copyright for "Fair Nottamun Town" was approved in 1964, based on the changes I had made in the lyrics. I have contributed much of the royalties (from Bob Dylan and others) to Kentucky charities over the years.

Your suggestion that the song may have been inspired by the English Civil Wars of 1642-51 is most interesting. I had heard another suggestion of it's possible origins, years ago, saying that it may have been composed during the Great Plague! When I did my Fulbright year, searching for sources of our family songs,in 1952, I spent time researching in Nottingham, and could find not a mention of it in the libraries, nor could any scholar tell me anything. Douglas Kennedy said that it was most likely the "magic song" used in an early Nottingham mummers' play. This could not be confirmed, because I couldn't find in any historical account any news of mummers' plays in that city. Douglas said that even though it was not now remembered, that of course there HAD been a mummers' play, as every city had one… This seemed to me to be the most likely explanation, as the words do go along with the "topsy-turvy" nature of the plays (clothing exchanged & turned inside out to hide identities, etc). One old mummer in Marshfield, when I asked him what the song might mean, said, "…why, lass, if the meaning's found out- the magic is lost!"

Another interesting thing is that there is not another similar variant of "Nottamun Town" in this country, or in England. An English group recorded it years ago, but they had learned it from me, at Newport I think. Can't remember the group's name, but it had Martin Carthy in it, and maybe Peter Bellamy. Many folk scholars have noticed and commended our family on our unique preservation of several old and rare ballads – one is our, "Fair Annie of the Lochroyan," a mixing-up of the words, "The Lass of Roch Royal."

All the best, Jean Ritchie

Origin of Ritchie family version
Further to the above I believe that Jean Ritchie made an honest mistake in suggesting that the song was 'uniquely' preserved in her family.

Sharp may have collected the song from Una Ritchie in 1917 at the Hindman Settlement School, but two versions (a printed one, and one from Hillard Smith) had in fact already been collected in the area in 1910 by Josiah Combs. Combs was, it turns out, a teacher at Hindman Settlement School where the staff engaged in projects encouraging people to learn about and perpetuate their local culture. The fact that Una's version incorporates a textual 'mistake' seen in the version Hillard Smith gave to Combs is strongly suggestive of the fact that Combs transmitted the song to the Ritchie family. Svejk74 (talk) 09:56, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Added material
I removed the followimg change:

"It is one of many songs which died out in England, people stopped singing it, and while the lyrics were preserved on paper the actual melody was thought to be lost to history as notation did not exist. Musicologists in North America discovered people in parts of the southern Appalachian mountains still singing the song in the early twentieth century.  All of these singers were illiterate, and the song had been passed down to them through oral traditions since the 1600s"

This is because:

a) There is no record of it in England, at all, other than a 18th century broadside called 'Teagues Ramble to the Camp' containing some of the same imagery b) The same broadside was printed in America as early as the 1740s c) Printed versions were circulating widely in the US during the 18th and early 20th centuries, including in the areas the song was collected by Sharp (nb the Ritchies were not 'illiterate' and one version of the song almost the same as theirs was collected from a KY state senator! hardly a backwoodsman) - all as referenced in Randolph: Unprintable Ozark Folksongs and Folklore: Roll me in your armsSvejk74 (talk) 17:35, 22 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Still waiting for some engagement with, or response to, this. Svejk74 (talk) 18:51, 22 December 2019 (UTC)


 * In the interim let's unpack what is wrong with the addition:


 * "It is one of many songs which died out in England, people stopped singing it, and while the lyrics were preserved on paper" - no they weren't, no sources state this, even those that repeat Ritchie's story of it being a mummers' song


 * "Musicologists in North America discovered people in parts of the southern Appalachian mountains still singing the song in the early twentieth century" - the English song collector Sharp collected it from Una Ritchie at the Hindman Settlement School in about 1917. Josiah Combs (who taught at Ritchie's school) also collected it from Hillard Smith, state senator, in 1910. He also collected a printed version, one of several


 * " All of these singers were illiterate" - neither Una Ritchie nor Hillard Smith were illiterate; neither was Jean Ritchie who is the primary source for most current versions. No sources claim this


 * "and the song had been passed down to them through oral traditions since the 1600s" - no sources claim this. Jean Ritchie suggested something similar but offered no proof; however she mistakenly thought the song to be unique. As Randolph notes it was relatively common.

The only source given for all the above assertions is "Love for Sale: Pop Music in America By David Hajdu". No publisher or date given. However I have, in the interests of being fair, looked at this book and it describes the song only as a 'medieval ballad' during a brief aside about use of the tune by Dylan - none of the above stuff about illiterate Appalachian people and oral transmission on page 141-2, sorry. So not only is the addition mostly unsourced, the one source provided doesn't even back it up!!

Svejk74 (talk) 19:15, 22 December 2019 (UTC)